Photos of Taira in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo by AP
A commended Ukrainian paramedic he recorded his time in Mariupol on a small memory card, which was released to the world using a tampon. Now he is a prisoner of the Russians and Mariupol is about to fall.
Yuliia Paievska, who as a volunteer paramedic is known as Taira, used his camera to record a body 256 gigabytes of video of his team’s frantic efforts to save lives. He gave the frightening footage to a team from the Associated Press, the last international journalist in the Ukrainian city, when they left in a rare humanitarian caravan.
Russian soldiers arrested Taira and her driver the next day, March 16, in one of several forced disappearances in areas in Ukraine now held by Russia. Russia said it was working for the nationalist Azov Battalion, following the Moscow line that it was working to “denazify” Ukraine. But the AP found no evidence of this and friends and colleagues said he had no connection with Azov.
The hospital where he led the evacuation of the wounded was not affiliated with Azov. And the video he recorded he shows he is trying to rescue wounded Russian soldiers, along with Ukrainian civilians.
A clip from March 10 shows two Russian soldiers recklessly being pulled out of an ambulance by a Ukrainian soldier. One of them is in a wheelchair. One was on his knees, hands tied behind his back, with a sore foot.
Two Russian soldiers were wounded. Photo by AP
A Ukrainian soldier curses one of them.
“Calm down, calm down,” Taira said to the Ukrainian soldier.
A woman asked him: “Will you treat the Russians?
Taira replied, “They won’t be kind to us. But I had nothing else to do. They are prisoners of war”.
kidnapped
Tara, 53, now a prisoner of the Russianssuch as the hundreds of local officials, journalists and other prominent Ukrainians who have been kidnapped or captured.
An evacuation from Mariupol, to Taira’s room. Photo by AP
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine noted 204 cases of compulsory disappearance and says some of the victims may have been tortured and five were later found dead.
The Russians targeted medical personnel and hospitals, despite the fact that the Geneva Convention mandates protection “at all times” for both military and civilian medical personnel.
Russian soldiers accused a woman in a convoy from Mariupol on May 8 of being a military doctor and forced her to choose between allowing her 4 -year -old daughter to accompany her to an unlikely fate or move on. in Ukrainian -controlled territory. The couple is separated.
The situation of Taira and what it reveals about Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian prisoners has new meaning as Mariupol’s last defenders are relocated to areas under Russian control.
Yuliia Paievska, Taira, and her photos. Photo by AP
Russia says more than 1,700 Ukrainian fighters barricaded at a steel plant surrendered this week, as Ukrainian authorities said the fighters would leave after completing their mission.
The Ukrainian government said it tried to include Taira’s name in a prisoner swap a few weeks ago. But Russia denies it has it, despite his appearance on television in the separatist region of Donetsk and on the Russian television network NTV, handcuffed and with bruises on his face.
A photo of Taira at the Invictus Games, in 2018. AP Photo
star in sports
Taira is known in Ukraine as a sports star who trained the country’s volunteer medical force. The video he recorded from February 6 to March 10 provides intimate documentation of a besieged city which became a symbol of the world of Russian aggression and the Ukrainian resistance.
On February 24, the first day of the war, Taira recounted the attempt to bandage the wound on the head of a Ukrainian soldier.
Two days later, he ordered his comrades to wrap a wounded Russian soldier in a blanket. “Sun” he called the young man. – a favorite nickname for the many wounded soldiers who passed through his hands – and he was asked why he went to Ukraine.
“You take care of me,” said the soldier, as if thrilled. “His response:“ We treat everyone equally. ”AP Photo
“You take care of me”, said the soldier, as if wondering. “His response: ‘We treat everyone equally.'”
Hours later, two children – a brother and a sister – who were seriously injured from the shooting arrived at a checkpoint. Her parents are dead. At the end of the night, despite Taira’s pleas “don’t go, child”, the boy also died.
Taira averted her face and cried. “I hate this,” he said.
During the video, he complained of chronic pain caused by injuries to his back and hip. bureau. And as always, sport a stuffed animal in the vest to give to any child you are treating.
No one knows about Taira and her driver. Photo by AP
On March 15, a police officer handed the small memory card to AP journalists. Taira, using a walkie-talkie, asked them to release the Mariupol card. The card is hidden inside a tampon when journalists passed 15 Russian checkpoints.
The next day, Taira disappeared with her driver, Serhiy.
A video shown on March 21 on a news program in Russia announced his acquisition. Within, Taira looks stupid and haggard while reading a statement calling for an end to hostilities. As he speaks, a voiceover calls his colleagues Nazi.
Yuliia Paievska, known as Taira, in Mariupol. Photo by AP
Married to a teenage daughter, Taira knows what war can do to a family. At one point, a wounded Ukrainian soldier asked him to call his mother, and she told him he could call her, “so don’t make him nervous.”
Taira’s husband Vadim Puzanov said so Little news he has received since he disappeared.
“Accusing a volunteer paramedic of all mortal crimes, including organ trafficking, is outrageous propaganda, I don’t know why,” he said.
Yuliia Paievska attends to a boy. Photo by AP
Taira was part of the Ukraine team at the Invictus Games, a competition for wounded military personnel. The body camera was received last year to film for a documentary series on Netflix about inspirational figures produced by Prince Harry of Britain, who founded the games.
Instead, he took pictures of the war. In his latest video, he sits next to the driver who gets lost with it. It was on March 9th.
“Two weeks of war. Mariupol under siege”He said softly. Then he swears and the image comes out.
AP Agency
PB
* Associated Press journalist Sarah El Deeb contributed reporting from Beirut; Inna Varenytsia from kyiv; Chernov Mstyslav from Kharkiv; Erika Kinetz from Brussels, and Elena Becatoros in Zaporiya. Reported by Lori Hinnant from Paris.
Source: Clarin
